Although he is now forgotten, Lowell Sherman was a popular actor and director when he made The Royal Bed (1930). I don't know why. In both fields, he is rather heavy-handed. Maybe the other players liked him because he allowed them to go over the top. There is a lot of shouting but little subtlety in this movie. Mary Astor nonetheless manages an engaging performance, although she misses the opportunity to make it plain that weak-as-water Anthony Bushell will be enslaved under her wifely thumb to a far greater degree than the king is now ruled by the imperious queen. Maybe playwright Robert E. Sherwood made this point in a stronger fashion when The Queen's Husband made its debut on Broadway in 1928. Roland Young was ideally cast as the king, Gladys Hanson was the queen, Katherine Alexander, the daughter, while Dwight Frye enacted the meek secretary. With the exception of Mary Astor, I would certainly have preferred this cast to that of the movie